The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca

As always, this text by Cabeza de Vaca is a classic and can be read with many ends in mind: proto-ethnography, failed conquest, shipwreck, etc. But the editor is kind of a bonehead, honestly. While he starts off with a discussion of the historiographical issues of the text, the perennial issue of whether it should be regarded as "history" or as "fictive," he pretty much sides with the more literary camp. I actually focus on the literary aspects as well in my own work, but somewhere along the way in the introduction, the text's literariness becomes, for the editor, an issue of fiction/truth value. While he correctly points out the literary currents and models of Cabeza de Vaca's age, he at times takes these to mean that the story is mostly made up - or so SO exaggerated so as to put the text clearly in the realm of creative writing. But the interesting thing about this text is how exaggerated and/or fantastical it is, while also a record of the encounter of one individual with wildly different cultures. The editor does correctly point out that the depiction of Amerindians in the text is "concrete" and not archetypal; Cabeza de Vaca does not paint them as noble savages or as blood thirsty cannibals. But to my mind, the editor pushes the intention to curry royal favor into a forced and forceful account of tall tales. And he also seems to take this narrative as evidence that Spanish colonialism was not as bad as it may seem if you read Las Casas. On the whole, English, French, and Spanish writers always seem to suggest that all the other empires were much worse and their own, but I don't know that that kind of comparison is useful. Lastly, the editor standardized Spanish grammar and spelling for the modern reader. If you have to read this book in college for a history or Spanish course in which you only have to know "the plot," I guess that's fine. But an edition with the older spelling and grammar would be much better if you're reading this for a literature class or a graduate class - it seems to me that particularly the non-standard grammar shows how even though Cabeza de Vaca does control his narrative in quite evident ways there is a great deal that he does not control. Overall, the editor has cost this book its fifth star.

Cabeza de Vaca's first hand narrative of his experiences in the New World is one of the most gripping true life adventure stories that you can find. The story is almost five hundred years old. It begins with his selection as treasurer for a Spanish invasion force of six hundred that was intended to conquer Florida (then thought to be an island), sieze the natives' gold and add their bodies to the Spanish crown while their souls would be dedicated the the Christian God. Everything went wrong. A hurricane hit. The expeditionary force was separated from their ships and ended up marooned on the Florida Gulf Coast, surrounded by hostile, deadly Indians. Eventually, the survivors slaughtered their horses for food, then melted down their armor to make nails and built boats in the hope of finding their way to Mexico. Many more men were lost before they made their way to what is now known as Galveston. The survivors experienced starvation, the cowardice of their leader, slavery and even cannibalism. Out of six hundred conquistadores, only four men survived. Those four men walked across the rest of Texas, wandering almost aimlessly in a search for the Spanish colony of Mexico. By the time they finally arrived in Mexico, after years of privation, they were no longer the same self-sure conquerors who had sailed from Spain. They had developed a following of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Indians who hailed them as "Children of the Sun". Cabeza de Vaca, who had emerged as their leader, fit the description of an Old Testament prophet. His hair had not seen a comb or scissors for several years, while his feet had not seen shoes for almost as long. Here's an extended quote from Chapter 19: "A few days after these four Spaniards had departed there came a time of cold and storms so severe that ... five Christians who were encamped on the beach came to such straits that they ate one another until only one was left, who survived because there was no one left to eat him.... The Indians were so indignant about this, and there was so much outrage among them, that undoubtedly if they had seen this when it began to happen they would have killed the men, and all of us would have been in dire peril: in a word, within a very short time only fifteen of the eighty men from both parties who had reached the island were left alive; and after the death of these men, a stomach ailment afflicted the Indians of the land from which half of them died, and they believed it was we who were killing them; and as they were wholly convinced of this, they agreed among themselves to kill those of us who were left." How's that for action? It's true that the narrative style itself is archaic and stilted at times. But this translation emphasizes simple modern English and cuts through a lot of the difficulty of reading a story that's half a millenium old. I've read the story of Cabeza de Vaca two or three times over the years. In it, I see an almost mirror image many

When I first moved to the Southwest, I asked locals to recommend books to learn about the area. I am so glad someone recommended this. I had never heard of Cabeza de Vaca. His peregrinations through the terra incognita of America in the early 1500's led me to the whole obscured chapter of the history of North America: when much of it was a colony of Spain. Cabeza de Vaca & his few companion shipwreck survivors started it all. His tales of what he'd seen ( & heard of) in what's now the American Southwest led to Coronado's quest for the golden Cities of Cibola (guided by Esteban,a black servant who had been one of de Vaca's companions); & directly to the European settlement of the region centuries earlier than it otherwise would have happened. In most history books, the Spanish colonization is-AT BEST-a footnote in a history that begins with the Pilgrims (a century LATER). And to archaeologists: take heed! Not all explorers of a new land leave distinctive artifacts to mark their passage. If not for de Vaca's written description of his experiences, which led directly to the Coronado expedition, this journey would be "unknown". Its a shame that history books are so biased toward the "east-to-west" Anglo. version of American history; nobody should miss wonderful episodes like Cabeza de Vaca's 8-year odyssey. This chapter in history shouldn't be "unknown" to anybody!

In 1527 Cabeza de Vaca was sailing to the "New World" with a Spanish expedition of conquest. As his ship ran aground in rough seas off the coast of Florida strife erupted and his detachment was abandoned, 300 Spaniards in all. Eight years later Cabeza de Vaca and two other Spaniards arrived in Culiacan--the northern most Spanish settlement in Mexico--more than 6,000 miles from their starting point. This book is their harrowing story. If one considered only the duration of the trip and the circumstances under which it was undertaken, De Vaca's journey would surely rank among the most miraculous tales of human survival ever recorded. And yet that accomplishment is only part of de Vaca's amazing story. For this narrative is much than another story of the human struggle against the apathetic forces of nature, while some aspects of it do indeed have this flavor. On the contrary, Cabeza de Vaca's Relacion represents an extraordinary account of the de Vaca's harrowing encounters with several indigenous tribes, while wandering what is now the Southern US and the cooperative, interdependent relationship which resulted. During De Vaca's travels he and his companions encountered numerous tribes, forging unlikely alliances and friendships. During this journey de Vaca details his self-transformation from conquistador to Indian medicine man. In addition to supplying invaluable knowledge about a variety of indigenous peoples and their "exotic" customs, de Vaca was also the first to describe the flora and fauna of what is now the Southern United States: Florida, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Even nearly 500 years later, de Vaca's account is still considered an indispensable source of first-hand information on the pre-colonial Southwest. Ultimately, de Vaca's narrative is the story of teh triumph of simple understanding and human cooperation. For during the eight years of travel, not only did de Vaca come to a greater understanding of himself and his purpose in life, but, more importantly he was one of the first Spaniards to acknowledge the humanity of those he first thought only to be "barbarous savages". It is in the playing out of this cultural dialectic and transformation of one conquistador's colonial consciousness, which is where its most enduring value lies.--Hayduke66

Everyone else's reviews are so right on the money. The story reminds us of a century of American exploration that occured before the English had even taken an interest in the New World. And it also gives us an amazingly close glimpse of what life was probably really like among the tribes of Native Americans living along the Gulf Coast. I don't know what to add, except for a comment about the afterward: Cabeza de Vaca could be described as the first American naturalist. Somewhwere between the discovery of the new world, and the twentieth century, people began to travel through the wilderness for the sake of enjoying nature rather than for any practical reason like looking for gold(Humboldt, Muir, Rooseveldt are just a few examples of this sort of "explore for pleasure" mind set). 8 years in the wilds of Florida, Gulf Coast, Texas and Northern mexico were enough to give Cabeza de Vaca a permenant case of new world wanderlust. When the King of Spain awarded Cabeza de Vaca with the governorship of Paraguay years later, Cabeza de Vaca did something strange: en route to Assuncion, he ordered his boats to go ashore in unexplored southern Brazil, 1000 miles from Assuncion, and took a band of men on a voluntary hike through the wilds overland to Assuncion, rather than sailing the boats up the Rio de Plata. Cabeza de Vaca's second book features an account of his voluntary nature hike. A moor survived the US trek with Cabeza de Vaca (appears as a character in the book), but never quite found his place his Spanish society afterword; the moor wandered up into New Mexico to live again among the native americans, and eventually was killed by angry native americans.